This specification relates to improving targeting of digital content to geographic regions.
Internet Protocol (IP) addresses associated with computing devices can be geolocated to identify geographic regions within which the computing devices are likely located. Digital content, e.g., advertisements, can be targeted to computing devices in particular geographic regions based on this geolocation data.
This specification describes techniques that interoperate with a communication targeting system that stores data measuring Internet traffic that originates from particular geographic regions. The system also stores data describing targeting accuracies associated with blocks of IP addresses (“IP blocks”) and geographic regions. Each IP block represents a non-intersecting range of IP addresses in a subnet. The targeting accuracy is measured as a probability that IP addresses in a particular IP block are associated with computing devices that are located in a particular geographic region. For example, a particular IP block and a geographic region “Mountain View, Calif.” can have a targeting accuracy of 30 percent, which indicates that there is a 30 percent chance that IP addresses in the IP block are associated with computing devices that are located in “Mountain View, Calif.” Additionally, the system stores data describing estimated population counts associated with IP blocks and geographic regions. Data measuring Internet traffic and describing targeting accuracies is available for geographic regions at varying levels of granularity, e.g., by country, state, region, city, postal code, or kind of region.